


Eat Me, Drink Me

by cuethe_pulse



Category: Twilight Series - All Media Types, Twilight Series - Stephenie Meyer
Genre: Alternate Canon, Blood Drinking, F/M, mildly dark!edward
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-18
Updated: 2014-01-18
Packaged: 2018-01-09 03:30:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1140906
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cuethe_pulse/pseuds/cuethe_pulse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“If I offer it willingly it’s okay, isn’t it?”  Canon AU in which Edward’s struggle with bloodlust is more prone to slipups.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Eat Me, Drink Me

**Author's Note:**

> For my darling [Jessie](http://pabulumm.tumblr.com/), who shares my ridiculous excitement over darker Edward and is TOTALLY cheating by waiting for me to finish this before continuing our rp! ♥
> 
> Also I had no idea how to end this. So I kinda didn't.

“You’re bleeding.” 

The statement hit her almost like an accusation the moment she stepped inside her room. Tense, Edward stood by her open window and looked seconds away from jumping right back out. 

She closed her door softly with a grimace. “I know.” She’d hoped to clean the scrape on her knee before his arrival, intending to grab her nightclothes and cover up the incident with a very long shower. Of course she couldn’t beat him; she didn’t know how she even thought she could. “I’m sorry.” 

He shook his head. He never wanted her to apologize, but it was hard not to, when his gaze kept flickering distractedly to the stretch of her leg, completely exposed by the shorts she wore. “Are you all right?” 

“I fell. Um. _Up_ the stairs.” 

“Of course you did.” That, at least, made him smile, though the twist of his mouth was somewhat strained. “Only you,” he said, and his voice was warm and fond despite his desires, almost laughing. “My graceful Bella.” 

The flush that spread from one ear to the other was deep and red, fed by both embarrassment and the shiver of pleasure that went down her spine at his possessive word choice. His answering shudder, however, was fed by something more dangerous. In less than a second, he’d crossed the room, standing before her with his fingertips hovering over her blush-stained cheeks. 

“So beautiful.” The murmured words were so close she could practically feel them like gusts of chilled wind that set her eyelashes fluttering. She couldn’t help the way her lips parted. For one dizzying moment, a kiss seemed imminent. But then he stilled, his nostrils flaring and a muted groan in his throat. “You shouldn’t let me get too close to you right now.” 

She knew that was probably true. She was hyper-aware of the place on her knee where the flesh was torn, the trail of blood leading down to her ankle. An invitation for her own death. 

“Maybe…maybe this is what you need.” A fearful hope clung to her words; if he _could_ read her mind now, all he would see was a storm of uncertainty. But a part of her did wonder if she was right. If they _had_ to cross this bridge before they could stay together. “Build up a tolerance?” 

He chuckled, though it lacked humor. “I am working on it, believe me.” His fingers moved toward her neck, but never touched, wary of her rapid pulse point. “Let’s not press our luck.” 

“Wait!” She felt him pulling back and she didn’t know what made her so insistent tonight, so brave—or foolish. “Have you thought about…what might happen if—you just…?” She couldn’t quite bring herself to finish. 

Brow furrowed in question, he searched her with eyes that were just now beginning to look normal—or what passed for normal for a vampire, anyway. He’d been wearing contacts to school since that night in Port Angeles, when his eyes went red with the deaths of her would-be attackers. Alone with her, he abandoned such pretenses, and she was glad, despite the disconcerting tinge of color that still lingered while the usual golden darkness returned. She lost herself looking at it until he closed his eyes with sudden realization. 

“ _Bella_.” It was all he could say before he had to swallow back what she could only assume was his venom. Hunger. 

“If I offer it willingly it’s okay, isn’t it?”   

“Bella,” he tried again, and she was pushing him, pushing him further than she ever had, “you don’t know what you’re saying. I won’t be able to stop.” 

“Yes, you will,” she said, like she knew, knew _anything_ , like she wasn’t terrified of what he could do, or of how much she wanted to try. She took Edward’s face into her hands, his skin cold marble in her palms. He didn’t move so she pressed on, coaxing through her own quaking nerves. “I know you can. Mind over matter, right?” 

“Using my own words against me?” When he smiled she could see his teeth, and she felt an awful, anticipatory jolt of something not dissimilar to pleasure. “Do you understand what could happen if I bit you? I know you aren’t eager to die.” 

“You won’t kill me.” 

She couldn’t be sure of that, not really, no matter how much she wanted to trust him and his intentions, and her head buzzed with danger when he grabbed her wrists and it took so little effort for him to completely restrain her. The slightest increase of pressure and he could leave her bruised. 

“Your fresh blood…” He spoke thickly, slow with great difficulty, breaking with each syllable. “The scent is so strong it is taking _everything_ within me to hold back.” 

Rising up on her toes, having already lost all shred of caution or sense, she tilted her face up for a kiss, her breath wavering. “Don’t.” 

She found herself moving through the air before she could register how, or why, and even when her back hit the mattress, it took her a second to catch up. Edward crouched near her feet, still as a statue. A low rumbling came from his chest that made the entire bed vibrate beneath her. He was growling, she realized with a tightening of her stomach, and his attention was utterly focused on her leg. The red of her blood stood vivid against the backdrop of her pale skin; there was no backing out or changing her mind now. Not that she could find it in her to speak at the moment, anyway. 

At the first tickling touch of his cool lips to her ankle, she couldn’t help how she spasmed away from him. Any hesitation on his part finally evaporated with that instinctive movement, and his growl grew louder, fiercer, when he gripped her calf. It was just this side of painful. 

“Don’t. Move,” he ordered her. 

For once, she wasn’t inclined to disobey, but he didn’t wait for her agreement. Slowly, so slowly she had to curl her fingers into the bedsheets just to keep from bursting, the flat side of his tongue cleaned away the path of her blood with even, savoring strokes. The affect his licks had on her was unsurprisingly intense; one moment she couldn’t find her breath, the next her breath came too fast. Her teeth caught on her bottom lip but that did nothing to stifle her gasp as his hand slid to her thigh. The sound seemed to encourage him and very soon, his eager mouth was at her knee. 

Here, she started to understand. The “frenzy”, he’d called it once. The way he attacked the blood pooling in her wound made her wince, all his slowness and caution gone. His tongue prodded at the raw spot, tried to wriggle its way beneath her skin as best it could, dredging a soft whimper out of her. His lips closed around her knee and, hazily, she imagined his teeth sinking in. All he did was suck, suck the area dry of any moisture, and that suction was so hard it _hurt_ though her body went warm all over just the same. She might feel ashamed later, might feel a little bit twisted when she recalls her enjoyment. Now, she could only feel his mouth on her, the tips of his fingers brushing just beyond the hem of her shorts where the muscles in her thigh quivered.   

“Edward,” she gasped his name, knowing she couldn’t take much more, knowing her limb was going dangerously numb. “Edward…” Her calls were soft and more pleading than insistent, so she reached down, tangled her fingers in his hair and tugged weakly. 

He growled again, the possessive sound traveling all the way down to her toes. 

“ _Edward_ , please…” 

What followed was a blur, a jumble of cold and heat and pressure and bright eyes, now unmistakably red, staring into hers. His hard, solid body was on top of her and she didn’t know when her uninjured leg had hitched around his waist but it had, and her hand was still in his hair and he was pressing into her like nothing separated them and she almost wished nothing did. 

She finally got her kiss then, though she could hardly concentrate on returning it. The grinding of his hips shoved the bed completely flush with the wall with a loud thud that she barely heard, her eyes closing as she surrendered to the overwhelm. 

He flew off of her a second later. 

She sat up, a protest more than ready, when— 

“Bella?”                

Her heartbeat skidded to a halt, her head whipping around at the creak of her opening door. Charlie looked in, questioning, and she wracked her brain for a reason why, how he could _possibly_ know— 

“Heard a noise,” he said, obviously trying to sound neither _too_ concerned nor too casual . “Everything good?” 

“Oh…” _Oh_ , right. “Yeah, I’m fine, I just—fell out of bed. Had a nightmare, I guess.” 

With her history of spills, it was an easy enough story to believe; he nodded, and gave her a quick glance. “You should put some ice on that knee.” 

“I will.” 

He left with a mumbled “goodnight”, the door clicking shut again behind him. Only then did she look down at her knee. The scraped spot was now as white as the rest of her, if not more, and marks had formed where Edward’s perfect lips had clamped down on her. She touched the bruise gingerly, momentarily mesmerized, until she noticed how silent her bedroom had gone. 

“Edward,” she whispered. He hadn’t hidden behind the door. She couldn’t find him in the shadows. “Edward?” She slipped out of bed with a mild surge of panic and crept to the window, but he was nowhere to be seen. 

Her eyes closed again, though this time it was in attempt to banish the prickling of incoming tears. Somehow she knew, knew with a horrible sinking certainty, that if he’d really left, he wouldn’t be coming back. They’d gone too far. _She’d_ gone too far, and now she would lose him for it. A sniffle escaped her at the thought, a thought that was infinitely more painful than anything she’d felt tonight. 

“Don’t.” In an instant, the brush of his thumb ghosted over her cheek. “I’m here.” 

Relieved, she turned toward him and hid her face in his chest so he wouldn’t see how crestfallen she’d briefly been. “Where did you go?” she murmured into his shirt. 

“Your closet. I needed…a moment.” It felt like he could use another one, or two. He was stiff and unresponsive against her, which only made her hold him closer. “I cannot even begin to apologize for my actions, Bella.” 

“There’s nothing to apologize for.” He scoffed, and she pulled her head back to frown up at him. “You didn’t hurt me.” 

“The discoloration of your skin would prove otherwise,” he argued sharply. 

Her knee, having regained some sensation, throbbed dully in agreement, and she belatedly noticed soreness in the space between her legs where his weight had settled when he’d all but mounted her. She amended her statement, “You didn’t hurt me in any way I didn’t like.” 

Surprise flitted through his undeniably inhuman eyes but it vanished quickly. “That isn’t a _good_ thing, Bella,” he told her, his jaw clenched. 

He wanted to step away from her, she could tell. Indecision rolled off him in waves; she only wished she could banish it for good. She wanted to face each day without worrying he would disappear from her life by the next. She’d offered her blood to him, hoped—maybe foolishly—that it might be enough, that her taste on his tongue might take the place of the magic words that would keep him by her side forever. 

“There, you see?” He wiped away the tears that had ultimately spilled over without her consent. “Only a monster would make you cry.” 

“You’re wrong.” About _everything_ , if only he could see… “A monster wouldn’t care.”


End file.
